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Mighty Morphin Power Designers

About Us

We are the Mighty Morphin Power Designers. We are a group of 8th grade students at William C. Longstreth Elementary School. We saw a lot of work last year with Mr. Rocco's team in the classroom and it looked like fun. We wanted to join this year to change lots of things, one at a time. We are a mix of new students and long-time Strethers. Our names are Brianna, Jayden, Rashay, Nia, Najmah, Sameer, and Saraiah.

Recent comments on our work:

We have incentive money here too, Ours is called grover gold. We did not see what you made, we just saw the dollars. Is it like a wallet? We award them the Protecter badge, for trying to help people protect their dollars.

Our Progress

Reading the instructions is always a good way to start. Now that you know how to play, pull this game out from time to time and exercise your creative talents. Sub in other items you have in your classroom--you can play this game and build your creativity skills with any item!

10What fun examples--who would NOT want to become Mr. Rocco through a Snapchat filter? There's a good chance the prototypes you develop for your own design project this year will represent experience, system, industrial, or interior design!

10Wow, you considered quite a lot of problems and selected an intriguing one--we can't wait to see what you learn during your research! You might find the Fresh Perspectives bonus activity helpful as you consider how different types of "users" might have different behaviors, needs, motivations, and attitudes.

10Nice job diagramming your problem and various concerns! Are students interested in and motivated by the things they can get with their reward dollars? Your description of your design challenge indicated that students have trouble keeping track of their reward money--do you plan to look at the part of the system where students receive their rewards dollars?

16There are all good thoughts and considerations. As you think about these different pools of users, consider what habits or motivations they share. This will help you identify needs or wants that you can design for to make sure your solution makes things better for different types of users. Or you may decide at some point to focus on one user group---if so, you want that to be a conscious design decision, and not just because you weren't considering all of your potential users!

10It sounds like you learned some good information during your research. Do students know how they can earn Scholar Dollars--are there specific rules, and do all teachers and students understand and oberve them? And what did you learn about the problem of students losing their Scholar Dollars before they can use them?

10We like the way you used your research findings to refine the scope of your design challenge. Keeping students' rewards secure and helping them keep track of what they've earned sound like good outcomes to brainstorm around. With regard to helping students earn more and having teachers give out more...is that a question of helping both sides understand and use the system, or is that more about encouraging and motivating students to do what they need to do to earn rewards?

20Thanks for watching this video and learning about some of the dangers of shallow research. Take care to do thorough research and consider all perspectives on your problem so your design can help address your problem in a thoughtful way without creating new problems. Your solution will have to work in your classroom/school environment--are you considering all of the things that a chair has to withstand in the course of a school day or school year? Dig deep!

10You thought about a lot of important considerations here--we like that you're considering everything from educating people about the program, to motivating people to participate, to developing a variety of objects and systems that could help students organize, track, and use their reward dollars!

10You have some good ideas about how to keep track of Scholar Dollars! Can you dig a bit deeper and get more specific with some of your other brainstorming categories? It's a great goal to want to increase positive behavior. So what are some different things you could try to make that happen? Can you identify the specific positive behaviors you want to see and figure out how they can be rewarded or encouraged? Can students and teachers agree on individual behavior goals (for example, participating in class, or improving a grade?) and set a reward for achieving them? What are some specific rewards that would encourage students to want to earn and spend Scholar Dollars (physical items? privileges?)? The more specific your brainstorming ideas, the easier it will be to develop and test prototypes of your ideas.

10Yes, sketching a system is like creating a storyboard or a diagram, and you've outlined some really important parts of your system here! Keep adding details as your think through how all the parts of this system will function. It looks like you're outlining a physical system (paper dollars, pen and paper ordering and accounting, etc.)...what happens to dollars after they are submitted---are they redistribtued to teachers to hand out again? If so, who does that? How do students know what their account balance is--do they get some kind of statement? When is the bank "open" for deposits, and when is the store "open" for ordering? How are the items distributed to students once they come in? Who is responsible for managing different parts of the system? There are so many things to think about when you are designing a system!

10Wow, there's a lot to think about in addressing the various challenges with the Scholar Dollar program! We like the detail you're putting into the different steps of the system...trying to prevent theft, verifying amounts, etc. Safeguards are important, though the more complex your system is, the harder it will be to maintain. Is getting the dollars in a physical form important to students...does the visual/tangible aspect of that motivate them? We're also intrigued by your traveling store. What problem is solved or what outcomes are improved by taking the store mobile? Keep up the good work and keep refining your ideas as you think through how your prototypes solve your design challenge!

10These are good observations about your prototypes, and good ideas about how to test. You have some understandable concerns, but the good thing about testing is it allows you to see what will actually happen, and that may lead to new insights about how to personalize the reward to reduce theft, or how to run the bank most efficiently. Good design doesn't have to be complicated. If you feel like you're getting stuck with making your prototypes work well without potentially causing new problems or complications, return to your original problem, consider everything you've learned, and then look at your brainstorming ideas and prototypes with fresh eyes.

20We're delighted tat you took this opportunity to participate in a design review and get some feedback on your work--this will make your project and your presentation stronger! It sounds like you got some good pointers. It will be helpful to remember that the audience on January 30 will not know anything about your problem or your project--this means you might have to share a lot of details about things that people in your school would automatically know.

10We're happy to hear you keep tinkering with your design to see what works and what can be improved--the best way to find potential problems is to test your ideas. It sounds like you are learning some good things. Did teachers find it helpful or distracting to send students out of the room one at a time? And how long does it take you to get through all of the students that way? (Is the bank for students in all grades?) Are there times when students aren't in class when the bank could accept deposits? We also haven't seen much in your deliverables about withdrawals, which makes us curious. Do students only use their Scholar Dollars to redeem rewards at the bank? If a student has nothing to deposit one week but wants to redeem funds from his/her account, is that student also allowed to go to the bank?

8Thanks for turning in your essay, budget, and implementation plan? We know you've been working hard on your project all year--keep it up! If you need any help as you get ready for your presentation, let us know. We look forward to seeing you at the ballpark on January 30!

10Nice work! Visuals are important and you have great pictures that illustrate your project! You do have a lot of slides--29 for a 5 minute talk (that's only 10 seconds per slide). Please make sure you can get through everything...it's such a great project, we'd hate for you to run out of time to explain it!

20It's a great idea to practice your presentation in front of an audience! The more you practice, the better and more comfortable you will be. We're glad your audience helped you out with some constructive feedback, and we look forward to seeing you next week.

Badges

Start Up- Zeroll Badge

Congratulations! You're starting to see things with a designer's eye. Great design comes from moments of discovery such as noticing a problem or an opportunity. Sherman Kelly did just that in 1933 when he noticed a young ice cream server who had blisters on her hands from dishing out hard ice cream. Kelly designed a new scoop made of cast aluminum that had fluid in the handle to transfer heat from a person's hand. This feature lightly softened the ice cream, making it easier to scoop. In addition, the scoop efficiently rolled the ice cream into balls and did not have breakable parts. TheZeroll scoop is one of the best in the business. You can even find one on display in New York’s Museum of Modern Art!

Empathy- Better Shelter Badge

Thanks for taking a walk in someone else's shoes! Designers empathize deeply to understand the people they are helping, just as Ikea and Better Shelter did when they set out to create safer and more dignified housing for refugees. The resulting "flat pack" shelter can be assembled by 4 people in just 4 hours, is built to last three years, and features durable walls for privacy, windows for light, a locking door for security, and a solar panel that powers an overhead light and can charge a cell phone. Also, the ceiling is high enough to allow a person to stand up straight. Over 16,000 units have been distributed, and the shelter won the Design Museum of London's Beazley Design of the Year award in 2016.

Define - Woodland and Silver Badge:

Nice work! Research requires patience and persistence. Just ask Norman Woodland and Bernard Silver, who were working and studying at Drexel in 1948 when they overheard a supermarket owner ask the school president for help developing an automated system to read product information at checkout. They settled on a design—the barcode—resembling linear Morse code and obtained a patent in 1952. But it took much more work over many years before their vision could be fully realized, and it was in 1974 that the first product—chewing gum—was scanned at checkout.

Ideate - AP Thailand Badge:

Way to get creative! It's not always easy to see everyday things or experiences with new eyes, but that's exactly what AP Thailand, a real estate company, did in a crowded neighborhood in Bangkok where there was no room to build soccer fields. AP Thailand literally thought outside the box and designed non-traditional fields to fit into spaces that were considered unusable. These unusual soccer fields are a hit with residents who now have a place to play their favorite sport.

Prototype - C.B.E. Badge:

Far out! Drinking out of a cup is something we take for granted, but in space, nothing is simple. Until recently, astronauts have had to drink from tubes inserted into special beverage pouches. Then, some engineers came up with an idea for a specially-shaped cup that uses principles of physics to keep liquid from floating away in the zero-gravity environment of the International Space Station. In 2015, astronauts on the ISS began using 3D printed prototypes of the cup as part of the Capillary Beverage Experiment (C.B.E.).

Test - Waymo Badge:

Now you get the picture…testing is very important! How else will you know that your idea solves your problem (and doesn’t cause unintended consequences)? In 2009 Google began testing concepts for a self-driving car, beginning with a retrofitted Prius operating on rural roads. As their design evolved, their testing became more sophisticated, moving onto highways and then to more complex urban environments. The self-driving car project, which Google spun off as an independent company called Waymo, has advanced its design so far that they are now conducting a public test of self-driving cars with residents of Phoenix, AZ.

DT Philly - StoryCorps Badge:

Hooray—you are on your way to getting your story out! You want your audience to empathize with the people you are designing for, and to understand the steps, goals, and outcomes of your design process and solution. Take a page from StoryCorps, an organization that collects and shares stories to help people understand one another’s experiences and perspectives. Story Corps uses audio recordings, pictures, and animations to bring stories to life. How will you tell the story of your project?

Nice work getting the conversation started! Collaboration is key to the design process!